The Cake Wars
Who among us is righteous enough to eat of the sacred buttercream Bible-beating Oregon bakers have denied gays?

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The first incident, in February, involved Gresham’s Sweet Cakes by Melissa, whose owner told a lesbian couple that “we don’t do same-sex marriages.” Earlier this month, Pam Regentin, who operates Fleur Cakes out of her home in the Hood River area, also refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple’s wedding.

Both bakeries cited their religious beliefs as the reason they would not make the cakes. Both describe themselves as Christian.

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We wondered what other requests these cakemakers would decline to honor. So last week five WW reporters called these two bakeries anonymously to get price quotes for other occasions frowned upon by some Christians. Surprisingly, the people who answered the phone at each bakery were quite willing to provide baked goods for celebrations of divorces, unmarried parents, stem-cell research, non-kosher barbecues and pagan solstice parties.

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Sweet Cakes owners Melissa and Aaron Klein were upset that we “would even try to entrap a business” and contacted conservative talk-show host Lars Larson.

SWEET TASTE OF WICKEDNESS: This cake purchased from Gresham’s Sweet Cakes by Melissa bears an important message*. - IMAGE: ronitphoto.com

Charlie Veitch was once one of Britain’s leading conspiracy theorists, a friend of David Icke and Alex Jones and a 9/11 'truther'. But when he had a change of heart, the threats began. He talks to Will Storr.

'The poster boy for a mad movement': Charlie Veitch Photo: Will Storr

On a June afternoon in the middle of New York’s Times Square, Charlie Veitch took out his phone, turned on the camera and began recording a statement about the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center.

“I was a real firm believer in the conspiracy that it was a controlled demolition,” he started. “That it was not in any way as the official story explained. But, this universe is truly one of smoke screens, illusions and wrong paths. If you are presented with new evidence, take it on, even if it contradicts what you or your group want to believe. You have to give the truth the greatest respect, and I do.”

To most people, it doesn’t sound like a particularly outrageous statement to make. In fact, the rest of the video was almost banal in its observations; that the destruction of the towers may actually have been caused by the two 767 passenger jets that flew into them. But to those who subscribed to Veitch’s YouTube channel, a channel he set up to promulgate conspiracy theories like the one he was now rejecting, it was tantamount to heresy.

“You sell out piece of s---. Rot in hell, Veitch,” ran one comment beneath the video. “This man is a pawn,” said another. “Your [sic] a f---ing pathetic slave,” shrilled a third. “What got ya? Money?” So runs what passes for debate on the internet. Veitch had expected a few spiteful comments from the so-called “Truth Movement”. What he had not expected was the size or the sheer force of the attack.

The question is whether or not the girl is being selectively prosecuted because she is gay.

We need to find out if the local prosecutors have refused to bring charges against male/female relationships in similar circumstances (which they are allowed due to prosecutorial discretion) but for some reason have chosen to make an example of this girl.

The question is whether there is selective prosecution, singling her out for harsher treatment. It's not one of letting her off the hook because she's gay or female.

If the prosecutors can find even one fairly recent case of a male/female relationship in that jurisdiction, in which they have filed similar charges, under similar circumstances, then all of this is probably fair.

Edited to add:

If these kids were surrounded by dozens of Senior/Freshman male/female dating relationships, and nobody in their school had ever been prosecuted for it, why should they feel like they were doing something wrong?

If the school allowed seniors to take freshmen as dates to the prom, why should these two girls feel like they were doing something wrong?

Under those circumstances, the "law" would probably seem quaint, like those old "blue laws" that forbid women in some states to wear patent leather shoes.

Keep in mind that I fell asleep last night with The Science Channel on, and that sometimes what's on the TV influences my dreaming.

In my dream, my friend and I were delivering pizzas.

One of our deliveries was at a country club.

We're walking past a room where a bunch of old men are playing cards.

This big, old guy, with no shirt, and a bunch of gold chains is smoking a cigar, and spewing stuff that (in my dream) I recognized as being stuff Rush Limbaugh said.

According to the old, topless guy (and Limbaugh) Obamacare was paying to give Viagra to comatose transgender people, because their families were convinced they'd die if they didn't have a constant erection.

I put down my pizza, walked into the room, and called the dude out for his ignorance and bigotry. I made one of those awesome speeches that only happen in dreams, but you can never remember them.

There was some laughter and some scattered applause.

And then the old dude stood up and came at me.

He was like a foot taller than me, and stood over me, pushing on my shoulders and yelling at me.

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

Many atheists thought it was pretty damn nice of the Pope to say that… even if the idea of being “saved” or “redeemed” thanks to Christ’s death is all made up.

We all knew that sense of one-ness and actions-speak-louder-than-prayers wasn’t going to last very long. As the Pope’s words made their way around the world, a Vatican spokesman had to do some damage control and remind everybody that atheists, in fact, are going to hell unless they accept Jesus:

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On Thursday, the Vatican issued an “explanatory note on the meaning to ‘salvation.’”

The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said that people who know about the Catholic church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.”

There is unconfirmed information that he already has a new, private sector job lined-up.

He may be resigning over this:

Timothy Murray under fire over campaign funding
January 24, 2013

State campaign finance regulators have found evidence that Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray may have violated state law by accepting political donations from the disgraced former Chelsea housing director.

In a previously undisclosed letter, sent in September, they asked the attorney general to investigate Murray, as well as key members of his campaign team. If eventually charged and found guilty of knowingly accepting illegally raised campaign contributions, the lieutenant governor could face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500 for each violation.

Aides to Murray, who said last week that he will not run for governor in 2014, have repeatedly said that he did nothing wrong and is not a focus of the state’s criminal investigation of the fund-raising activities on his behalf by former Chelsea housing director ­Michael E. McLaughlin.

It was Murray himself who initially requested that state campaign regulators examine his fund-raising, presumably hoping the outcome would clear his name.

In six seasons of Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Gordon Ramsay has never quit on a client. Until last week, that is, when he found Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, owners of Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Arizona, simply beyond help.

"It is because they are incapable of listening," an exasperated Ramsay told viewers.

Ramsay was being unusually euphemistic: Throughout the episode, the Bouzaglos threatened some customers, screamed profanities at others, fired waitstaff, and proved generally terrifying.

"You have the right to run the business the way you want to run your business," Ramsay tells the couple after giving it his best shot. "I have the right to do the right thing. And the right thing for me is to get out of here."
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Apparently driven right over the edge by a flood of one-star reviews on Yelp and similarly unflattering takes on their professionalism by Redditors, Amy and Samy have left a series of increasingly loud Facebook posts blaming their impending financial ruin on everyone and everything besides themselves:

You Must See Amy’s Baking Company’s Insane Facebook Breakdown (PHOTOS)

Last week’s season finale of chef Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares featured Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro of Scottsdale, Ariz., a restaurant so vile and beyond repair that it led Ramsay to walk off the show for the first time ever.

The owners of Amy’s Baking Company were shown stealing tips from waitresses, calling customers by homophobic slurs, reselling store-bought food as if it had been made in-house and just generally being gigantic twats (to steal a word from Ramsay himself).

After the episode aired, someone took to the official Amy’s Baking Company Facebook page and posted the following message: “We do not feel the need to make any excuses for our behavior on tonight’s show.” The spokesperson then denied that the restaurant’s owners ever stole from employees.
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In the past 24 hours, whoever has control of the Amy’s Baking Company Facebook page has completely lost it, posting message after message of rambling threats and denials. It’s as good a corporate social media meltdown as you’ll ever see.